-Deccan Herald Mangalore: Ajai Naik and Lokamma, belonging to Schedule Tribe and Malekudiya community, were earning their livelihood by working as daily wage labourers and had never dreamt of owning an arecanut or banana garden or growing vegetables in their land. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employement Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) changed the course of their life. Ajai Naik and Lokamma hail from Amtoor village in Golthamajalu gram panchayat of Bantwal taluk. The duo were the first...

-Down to Earth Faced with crop losses because of erratic rainfall and extreme weather, tribal farmers of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh turn to bewar and penda forms of cultivation that keeps them nourished all times of the year, but government agencies are bent on rooting out these farm practices Hariaro Bai Deoria should have been a worried person this year-an untimely spell of rain late last October flattened her paddy crop, and...

-Deccan Herald The National BiodiverSITy Authority has recognised 30 villages in Zaheerabad of Medak district of Andhra Pradesh that grow traditional and fast-disappearing millets as Agricultural BiodiverSITy Heritage SITe (ABHS). The Andhra Pradesh State BiodiverSITy Board (APSBB), which finally gave green signal for the rare recognition, has sent its recommendation to the National BiodiverSITy Board, which has approved the proposal making these villages to become first villages in India...

-Outlook The real story of a ‘decisive' UPA blowing away the eight-year cloud around Posco's project Bend It Like Moily Seven reasons why UPA's pre-poll green clearance for Posco is more about spiel than steel Posco got green clearance after the sudden removal of MoEF Jayanthi Natarajan, who was reluctant to sign on the file. The nod came days before South Korean President Park Geun-hye's viSIT;...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: The state will slash the proposed number of security camps at Saranda, indicating a welcome wane in Maoist presence and influence in Asia's largest sal reserve, but the health of the showpiece action plan for 55 forest villages is open to question two years after its launch. Around the start of the Rs 249-crore Saranda Action Plan in December 2011, soon renamed to Saranda Development Plan, 24 security camps...